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Thursday, 29 September 2016

I only just noticed that Netflix uploaded a new episode of Once Upon A Time. I did plan on watching some spooky theme family films as Halloween approaches, but this has magic right so still counts.

I do really like once upon a time, and I waited patiently for the new episodes to be put up. Although, the only way I managed that was by finding other things to watch in the meantime.

Hopefully I don't sneeze all the way through this episode as I have the sneezes at the moment... my cat Spyro is looking at me strange as usual, she likes to make sure I am okay and comes over to me, meows then once she can see that I am fine she wanders of happily.

image from google

If I don't get crazy looks like that from her, usually she falls off the bed or something.

So now that my sneezes have kindly stopped, time to watch this episode..

I absolutely love making beaded bracelets. I find it is great as a relaxing method when I am really sore , it takes my mind off the pain.

Once jewellery is done I swap it for nice items. I hope to swap some ready made bits for household items for when I find a new home.

I do own a lot of beads, all different kinds. I have also had people get beads to swap with me so that is handy

The above photos show the beads I have recently received. They are both packs of crackle glass beads, different sizes. I have no idea what I plan to make from them yet, I just create bracelets as the ideas come to me. Since I already have a lot made up, I think I will just get rid of all that first.

Tippex is such a life saver when it comes to letter writing. Rather than ending up frustrated at the mess of a error and the thought of starting all over again, a little bit of tippex saves the day.

This was one of the items I received as part of a swap. I do already have 2 spare tippex rollers but the more the better as they are always needed.

If I accidentally write an address wrong on an envelope I don't go throwing it away, this is where tippex comes in handy again.

I like to reuse things and hate waste when it isn't needed. I'll be honest though I have never tried a tippex pen and I do wonder what they are like, if they are easy to use or if they dry up quick as I found some basic tippex fluid used to dry up easily all the time or maybe I just wasn't using it right.

I do apologise, I do want to start blogging again but my migraines seem to say otherwise. So I have had to have a bit of a rest for a day, which was a bad start I know but still a must.

It also gave me some time to think about ideas of things to talk about although instead my body choose sleep! Never mind... There is always tomorrow right?

Well tomorrow I have the hospital to speak to a Neurologist about my Epilepsy so first of all I have to write down what I plan to say as they always ask how things have been and my answer certainly won't be "great fantastic no seizures or sickness" as that isn't the case...

But after that is done, I can come home and I have no plans until social work contact me to arrange to come to see me... which is another thing I don't look forward to but I need help so it is needed.

But again, enough of this doom and gloom. I hope the weekend will bring some nice swaps or maybe even ebay sales.

I do absolutely love Disney movies but I will admit that this is one that I have never watched. I do want to get all those I have never watched and see what they are like in the future and hopefully build up a Disney collection of my own.

I do already have a few Disney movies on DVD but not as many as I would like. The same goes for other family movies.

My favourite of all time though have to be both Pocahontas and Mulan. I could watch them over and over again without getting bored and sing along to the songs also since I have watched them so many times now. I may be 25, but I am still a kid at heart.

You are probably wondering what is so good about having new glue sticks? I'll tell you.

As a letter writer, I have a lot of different stickers for my letters and I do often come across some that are well.. not sticky at all. It would be a shame to throw away stickers when they are still in perfectly good condition so glue sticks are always handy.

I also use them to glue mini cut outs of paper into penpal friendship books containing the name of my facebook swap group just in case any penpals around the world want to join. I thought it was a good idea.

Because I am crafty, I would be totally lost without glue sticks, tape and things like that. I could use double sided tape as I have that too, but I save that for when making paper envelopes.

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

As many of you may know already, I love swapping stuff. I am also disabled and I struggle to walk so I'm stuck inside most of the time. Luckily with my mail being posted by a neighbour I can continue my hobby.

Charm earrings are so simple to make, and my penpals love them. Some even ask for matching bracelets. I do love jewellery making but due to back pain I can't tolerate much anymore but I can still do a few bits at a time which is enough to get some trades done.

Below you can see some current ones I have available:

I thought I would share my ideas with people. They may be simple but they still make a good gift.

This item was part of a swap I did with a member in my swap group on facebook. She kindly got me this in exchange for some goodies and it seems my cats love it. Although as I was opening the box, all Spyro was interested in was running away with the cellotape until she actually saw what was inside and smelt the catnip.

Poor Blaze did want to play and have a roll around also but Spyro made sure she spread all over it.... So Blaze took a huff and sat on the floor.

I think I can safely say my cats are very grateful and love it. One of their scratch posts is ready for the bin and to be honest so is one of the activity centres that I have for them as they are both a few years old. I did buy a new activity centre to replace the old one but I haven't yet thrown the old one out. I thought this would be a fine treat for them.

Eventually Spyro did let her sister have a turn on it as she got hungry.. One thing I must say though is although I knew it came with free cat nip, I thought the portion was tiny. Maybe I just expected too much since it was free after all but I do have catnip of my own so I guess that is something.

Since my cats love it so much, my review of this definitely has to be that it is a great product for cats.. Especially lazy ones with the way it curves ha!

For a very long time, I wasted so much money buying ink cartridges that dried up after a few uses. It got to the point that I actually hated using my printer and I was fed up trying to find decent ink cartridges cheap that actually lasted.

Eventually I was lucky enough to come across refillable ink cartridges. I have an epson printer and I found the correct ones for my printer, then it was just a matter of getting ink and syringes to fill them with...

It came to a point where I had to start using disposable gloves I had when filling any ink as I always managed to end up with colourful nails and hands which took days to come off.

I remember having to go to an appointment and the ink turned my nails and finger pink and I couldn't get it all off. Since I wear black all the time, the person I was meeting turned round to me and said "April, that really isn't your colour". At least someone seen the funny side to it!

Although recently I broke off one of the tips of the syringes into an ink bottle so I had to buy more. I thought since I did it once, I'd probably do it again so best stock up and bought 10 for £3.75.

The ink I get comes in sets of 4 and the bottles are 100ml so they really do last. I have had mine for a very long time and not one bit of ink has dried up and due to writing to penpals and printing letter paper and parcel labels plus other things, I do use my printer often. I'd never go back to non refillable ink cartridges.

There are so many questions that I get asked regarding my piercings & I thought I would do a blog post about them.

I do not regret any of them and I also have two tattoos

My only piercings are on my face and my ears and in total I have 5 under my lip, 1 above, 4 on my nose, cheeks and 5 on my ears.

I have stretched my ears slightly as gold, silver, or even gold and silver plated do not agree with my skin.

Moving on to questions and answers:

Does it hurt?

Well I guess that is just like asking if a blood test hurts as both involve needles. Depending on the location you may feel it more than other places but since I did most myself except my cheeks which I admit was rather silly, I can't really give a full response. I find the healing process to be most annoying as they need a lot of tending to and get crusty plus when trying to sleep it makes it irritating as I found I always managed to knock them in my sleep, ouch!

My ears when stretching them stung for around a day, with a bit of aloe vera gel they cooled down and I was fine after that.

Why so many?

Honestly, I have no proper answer for this. When I got one, I wanted another. It became a little bit of an addiction and got out of hand but my cheek piercings were my last.

Why none anywhere else?

People ask this all the time when I say it is just my face and ears. I am unsure if they mean to sound crude or are just incredibly nosey. Piercings elsewhere never interested me at all.

Do they get in the way of things?

Actually yes they can do but I cope. I have a bag full of spare body jewellery that I keep in my main bag at all times just in case any of my piercing balls fall and I lose them. I must say though I do hate it when they fall in my food and I've got to dig them out with my fingers. Yuck! Cereal is the worst, chasing tiny piercing balls around a bowl filled with milk. I've also caught them on clothes a few times and my pillow and covers..

I'm not sure about most people, but one thing I cannot stand is the mouse pad on a laptop. I like small sized wireless mice.

Recently my laptop started acting up and refused to recognise my laptop mouse so I had to purchase some new ones online. I buy mine on ebay, from china sellers as they are cheap.

The ones I bought were rather cheap and only take one AAA battery which does last quite a while. I purchased 4 of them at £1.95 each which is a bargain! You may be thinking, why buy 4? But having 4 means that when one stops working I will have a spare and they will last for ages.

I'll admit it does take a while for things to arrive from china but I am patient and since the one I am currently using works perfectly, I can safely say it was well worth the wait.

It seems that last night was a pretty lucky night for me as I woke up only to check my phone and find I sold a Pop Vinyl Figure on eBay.

I do have quite a few that I have to get rid of as well as many other things but I have noticed that they seem to be very popular when selling as they are a great collectors item, just not really what I was looking for.

I decided it was time to let them go to a new home since they are all brand new and Christmas is coming up soon. When I see eBay doing 100 free listing offers, I cant refuse as it means that I get to clear out some of my stuff.

It sold for £9.97 and free postage which I am pretty happy with and I hope that it will make someone else happy too.

After browsing their website, I noticed what a fantastic selection of items they had and with great prices too!

The business is located in Essex in the UK and they have both a facebook page and a website.

I love a good treat in the bath, and I know there are a lot of people out there that are the same. Whether it would be bath bombs, bath petals, fancy soaps, lush smelling body washes and even stuff for my hair... I always manage to somehow find it too hard to resist!

Don't these look great?

All of their products are made from natural ingredients and safety assessed which is fantastic. I love natural products. I have really sensitive skin so I have to be careful what I use and I know that other people may be the same way.

On their website they have bath bombs, soaps and chill pills. Chill pills are mini bath bombs. They come in different scents and colours.

They also display the ingredients on the website so if you have allergies, don't worry! The ingredients are there.

Coconut dream soap loaf

These soap slices are £1.50 each and are hand cut so may slightly vary in size although minimum weight of each slice is 100g.

They also do love heart guest soaps weighing 20g each ideal for weddings or other events. Those are 50p per soap.

I managed to grab a pack of 100 plastic colourful skull charms on ebay for 96p. I thought they would make great earrings for younger kids. The colours are pretty bright so I am sure they would be quite popular.

I will most likely swap them in my swap group on facebook as earrings seem very popular there.

The good thing about making charm earrings like that is it doesn't take long so can do that even having a bad back and they make good gifts for friends , family or penpals although I always do it in small amounts.

I will show some photos on another post when I get round to making some.

I must admit, I have far too much stationary and I just don't know when to stop. I just spot it and think "oh that will go great for my penpal letters!!". Before I knew it, I had a massive box full of stuff.

A website I use for swapping called swapit often has stationary supplies and unfortunately I can never resist!

Well I can definitely say that my letters wont be boring anytime soon.

I am not girly in the slightest, quite the opposite although most people I write to love stickers, washi tape, gel pens and anything stationary.

So today, I came across a page on facebook full of lovely handmade items. The shop is called The Butterflies Kiss and they make amigurumi makes and crotchet items.At the moment, they are running a giveaway that I thought I would share with you all. The giveaway has 4 options, the winner will be able to pick from the 4 which type of prize they would like. They are located in the UK.

Sunday, 25 September 2016

I do apologise, I have been pretty absent for quite some time. I'll admit that blogging really isn't a strong point for me but I would really like to learn on how to improve my blog and writing. I have been doing penpal letters for quite some time now. I don't have a social life due to my health so it keeps me connected with people. I also later decided to create my own facebook group called swap gifts with penpals, this is where many people are able to arrange swaps easily in the one place. I was really surprised with how popular the group became as members increased pretty fast and there are now over 700 members. I thought I would share it with people on here in case there is anyone that wants to join.